What I Made // 1940s in Faux Seersucker

06/15/2016

Hello dears! I am so excited to be sharing this remake with you all today! I hinted at it in my “Summer Inspiration Post”, and Brigid and I finally got the chance to snap some pics to share with you all!

A few weeks ago, a dear friend that we met through the blogosphere sent us girls a big box of clothing that she thought we might like. In that box was a purple striped vintage dress that was much too big, but had so much potential. It was about 5 sizes too large on me, with a skirt that hit me right at my knees. The original sleeves were short with elastic gathering the edges. It was trimmed all over with crocheted cotton lace and purple ribbon, and all in all looked like an old, handmade “Sunday best” dress. (I’m still kicking myself for not taking a before picture while I could! Bad Charlotte!) I snapped it right up, and set to work ripping out the old stitches, removing the lace, fitting the bodice (remarkably the bodice darts hit at the perfect spots, just the side seams needed altering!), and making new cap sleeves.

I had a bit of a dilemma with the skirt at first. For some odd reason the original dress featured a very full, oval skirt. Oval. I’ve never seen an oval skirt on a dress like that before, so it kind of blew my mind 😛 The length of the skirt was much too short for my preferences, so I knew that I would have to make a completely new skirt out of the old one. Happily, I had the perfect amount of fabric to cut out 2 of the back yoke & skirt pieces from my Simplicity 1587 pattern. I nixed the original gathered front feature of the pattern, as I thought it wouldn’t flow with the rest of the design I was aiming for (plus I didn’t have enough fabric, hehe 😉 ). I cut the yoke with the stripes going horizontal, and the skirt going vertical. It not only added the perfect amount of interest on the dress, but also saved me the tedious task of pin-stripe matching, hehe 😀

I salvaged the zipper from the original dress, which I was quite happy about! I’m always struggling to get zippers for my clothing, it seems 😛 The original cap sleeves that I made were too restricting, so I added in gussets to not only provide more movement, but to also echo the horizontal/vertical stripe pattern that I had going on the rest of the dress. I added the buttons at the neckline to cover a little stain, which happily introduced a rather nautical theme which I rather like 🙂 My belt is made from an old sheet and a delightful vintage buckle.

Now let’s just talk about the fabric for a sec: I have never come across a cotton that was printed so oddly. It’s not seersucker, but the bold stripes have thin, little stripes going perpendicular to them, creating the look and texture of seersucker from a distance. If you squint your eyes, you can see what I mean. But, I loved the color and overall vibe of the fabric (for some reason it reminded me of the costumes in State Fair), so I had to put it to good use.

All in all, this fun little frock is definitely going high on the list of “favorite refashions”. I adore the silhouette and wearability of this dress! It’s so light, airy and laid back while not sacrificing polish and vintage flair.

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About Charlotte

Charlotte is the Art Director, Web Designer and Developer of the blog. She loves expressing her creative side through photography, web & graphic design, sewing unique, creative clothing, singing opera & broadway music, and playing the piano.

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I think this is my favorite (that shade of purple is one of my favorite colors; I actually have an Eshakti dress in seersucker gingham in that color, but I have to say I like the style of your dress better overall) or one of my top favorites of you all’s self-sewn dresses.The other top favs are Brigid’s Cinderella dress and Charlotte’s gold polka dot dress (when I saw that dress and again saw the fabric used by Lily at Mode de Lis, I knew I had to see if the fabric came in silver, and it DOES, so I am planning on making a dress out of that soon).

Hello Charlotte,
This new remodeled dress is fun to watch and it will you look great. The talent is to have known something new with the old while keeping the original spirit . This pad is given to everyone. You and your sisters you have talent and a very strong artistic sense. I wish I had a quarter of your attention to detail and fashion . I do not know sewing , embroidery and just make the canvas. I hope to have the time to learn . Thank you again for sharing wonderful . Well Charlotte you’re beautiful .
Marlène

Charlotte, I absolutely adore this dress!! It’s perfect in almost every way. You did an amazing job. And by the way, congrats on the fabulous new camera! I have a Rebel T3, which I bought a year and half ago, so I’m not quite ready to upgrade yet, but when I do, what’ll you bet it won’t be the 6D?! Because I’m dying over your new pictures. They’re beautiful.

I am so in love with this dress Charlotte! When I saw your new profile picture on Facebook and noticed the dress I got really excited for the post featuring it:) That is so crazy that it’s now seersucker because it totally looks like it and the lavender color is fabulous!!!
I think my favorite refashion was one I did for The Little Mermaid play I did costumes for and I turned an old 80’s dress into Ariel’s pink puff sleeve dress:)
-Madisonhttp://www.minniemuseblog.com

Oh, I love refashioning clothes that don’t fit and putting a whole different style to them. You did a wonderful job restyling this dress. I have a couple of projects like that that aren’t yet completed, an old jumper of mine that I wanted to turn into a dress, and an off the shoulder formal gown that I want to refashion into a 1940s style formal. I have resized down (by several inches) a skirt with a zipper. Oh, and with zippers, when I have a really worn out skirt that I won’t wear anymore because it is so worn, I take the zippers out and save them for new projects. I used one I had salvaged in that way to take a large gathered elastic waist skirt and turn it into a Dirndl style skirt with a zipper and waistband. I also salvage buttons.

Charlotte, this is just amazing! Such a gorgeously simple, breezy dress that flatters your figure so nicely. Hard to believe it started out the way you described!
Incredible job, my friend! I wish I had your talent. 🙂
~Abby

Even though there isn’t a picture of the “before” to compare the “after” too- I don’t need to see it to know that this is a great refashion! So neat that you were able to completely recycle the old dress- even using the zipper and an old sheet. (I recently made such a garment myself- a skirt out of an old sheet, and a recycled zipper) Your new dress is definitely a winner in the “Make Do and Mend” category!The Artyologist

What a fabulous dress! I truly love everything about it, the vertical and horizontal stribes, the buttons at the top, the fitting – everything. Really well done job, I admire your skills. I always love the thought of rescuing vintage dresses. I feel like I save a bit of history and hope it will last for coming generations to enjoy too. But I also wish you had a before photo, it would have been fantastic to compare. Wishing you a lovely weekend. 🙂

Stellar revamping job! This is such a sweet, beautiful dress with a great squared neckline. Even without “before” photos, based on your description, it’s very evident that you gave this frock a solid 180 and it came out far better for it. Three huge cheers on breathing new life into an older garment.

I looove that lilac colour, and it’s such a pretty dress! I’m so impressed ~ I know how hard it is to rework something rather than just starting with fresh fabric, so kudos to you Charlotte! It was so worth it because this dress is perfectly gorgeous! ❤

I love this dress so much! You all have such talent in making things. I had the same problem once, I received a navy blue vintage dress that was at least 5 sizes to big. I tried to fix it… And well, lets just say it didn’t come out looking as gorgeous as that haha! So congratulations because I know how hard it is.

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